Reid's Lament
by Haymitch-The-Hobo
Summary: -AU- Since Maeve's death, Dr. Spencer Reid has been imagining things. He's been creating characters and imagining that, along with them, he works in a branch of the FBI called the BAU. Sometimes he hears and sees them. The voice in the back of his head tells him that he's going insane. What can he do to separate his fantasies from reality?


Reid jolted awake, shaking and covered in sweat. He'd had a dream. It had been one of those dreams. The ones with the imaginary people.

Rubbing his eyes, he climbed out of bed and to the bathroom. He washed his face and then changed into a different set of clothes. Early morning light streamed through the curtains, signaling that it would be time for him to go to work soon.

He shelved books at a local library. It wasn't the best job, but it was the only one he could find right now. For the past few months, he'd been switching jobs routinely, keeping each for no more than two weeks.

Once he left his apartment, he flagged down a cab and began the commune to work. The library was quite a distance away, so the rides usually gave him time to think. Thinking wasn't always a good thing for Reid. Actually, it was almost never a good thing. Not since Maeve's death, anyways.

She'd been killed in a car crash when she was on her way to meet him. They were going to meet at a coffee shop and chat for a while, but a drunk driver had crushed any hopes of that. Forever.

Reid's favorite memory of her flooded into his mind. It happened only a few days before she had died, so it was fresh and all the more painful. The two of them had danced. He has been shy because he was a bad dancer, but Maeve had insisted and he couldn't deny her.

As the memory came back to him, so did others. The way she laughed, her bubbly intelligence, even her smell. It all surrounded him, threatening to drown him. But he swam to the surface and pushed the memories away.

After a few minutes of staring out the window, his mind drifted to the people that he had imagined. They were almost always on his mind. He had created them as a distraction from his thoughts of Maeve, but they had consumed him just as much as she had. Sometimes he would see and hear them, then remind himself that they weren't real and reject the voice in the back of his head that told him he was going insane.

Each one represented something that he didn't have, something that he wish he had. Garcia had her cheerful demeanor and ability to talk to anyone, where he seemed to flounder. Morgan always seemed so ready to help others with sympathy, whereas Reid could only offer cold facts. Rossi was very wise, while he was only intelligent. Hotch-

He stopped himself there. He couldn't get too wrapped up in them or the words that the voice in the back of his head spoke would be true.

Once he arrived at work, his day was fairly normal, spent shelving books and listening to the librarians gossip. The thoughts of Maeve and the imaginary people had gone. Or so he thought.

During his lunch break, he thought he saw JJ at the counter, returning a novel. Later, his mind fooled him into thinking that Blake was browsing the shelves. All of the imaginary people showed up at least once, even saw Gideon, Erin, and Prentiss.

He ended up leaving early that day because it was all too much. The imaginary people, the voice, they applied so much pressure. He could feel himself caving in. And he hated it, every single moment.

He slept once he got home and didn't bother going to work the next day. Or the one after that, or the one after that. He didn't care. Sorrow had gripped him again and he kept wondering if his grief should have left by then. I had been three months, after all.

Eventually, he found himself sitting on the couch and rereading the Thomas Merton quote that Maeve had written in the book she gave him. When he looked up, he saw Morgan sitting on the table a few feet away.

"It's okay to grieve, Spencer. Do you think that Rossi got over Erin in three months? No. Part of him is still broken, and that's okay." The man's eyes were filled with concern.

"No, he can't be broken."

"And why is that?" Morgan arched an eyebrow.

"Because he's not real. Neither are Rossi and Erin. They're all figments of my imagination, just like you." Reid put his head in his hands and stared at the floor. "I solved all of the cases, just as I created them. There was never a Replicator and he never killed Erin."

"Just because someone isn't real, it doesn't mean that they can't be broken."

"Go away," Reid told him, his voice solemn. "Please."

There was no answer. When he looked up, Morgan was gone, both the room and his life seeming emptier than ever. The voice in the back of his head hissed that he was insane. Besides the voice the only sound was the yowling of a cat outside the apartment.

Tears began to well in his eyes, for he had never felt so completely and utterly alone.


End file.
